


Seeing Stars

by Tyranno



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Character Death, Character Study, Gen, dark!Peter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-29 06:14:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10848138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyranno/pseuds/Tyranno
Summary: It starts with a headache, and then numbness. Then he loses control.It turns out a God won't go down that quickly, not when part of him lives on in another.(Post GOTG2)





	Seeing Stars

**Author's Note:**

> I thought there would be another fic with "seeing stars" in the title for GOTG but I guess I got there first y'all.
> 
> Also the summary is tonally different from the fic but hey... that always happens

“I think I’m going to call it a night,” Peter says, finally.

Gamora tilted her head in a half nod, not taking her eyes off the night sky outside. The fireworks were fading on the night, and the ravager’s thick ranks were dwindling. The ashes still twinkled, stationary in space’s vaccum.

Peter pulled his arm from around her shoulders and padded back to his dorm. Mantis shot him a strange look, antenna twitching, but looked away before he could catch her eye.

A pain was picking up in the side of Peter’s skull. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. He felt a few tonnes heavier, and his eyes ached. God, what a day…

He leant back on his pillows, half-closing his eyes. He wouldn’t sleep. He couldn’t. When his head got like that—buzzing, confused, frantic—he couldn’t wind down to rest. Peter yanked the pillow from under his head and pressed it into his nose.

God—he’d _felt_ it. He’d felt his father die. He’d felt the light in him crumble in on itself, collapsing under the vacuum in its centre. It was horrible—it was an ugly way to die. Peter breathed shallowly in the old pillow, trying to regulate his breath. In, out. In, out.

A heat rose to his face, sharp behind his eyes. He blinked and scowled, throwing the pillow off his face. His breath came short and sharp. It felt like there was a weight on his ribs.

“It’s a shame,” Someone said.

Peter sat up, lifting his head. “What’s a shame?” He asked, and squinted around his room. The light from the living room faded to nothing in his doorway, interrupted by the dark shapes of discarded clothing, and ship parts. His digital clock ticked away the time, nearly too dim to read. There was nobody there.

He let out a sigh and flopped back onto his bed. He fished his pillow out from between his bed and the wall, squinting from his blinding headache—but froze when he heard it again.

“An utter, utter shame,” The voice came again.

Peter stared around his empty room. Anxiety wormed away in his chest. He swallowed, “What’s a shame?” He asked, quietly.

Nothing moved. For a moment, there was silence.

“When a son betrays his father,” The voice said.

Peter’s heart-rate picked up. He scrambled to his feet, staring accusingly at his still room. “Who’s there?” He snapped, and turned on the spot, glaring at familiar piles of trash. “Who are you?!”

“Quill?” Drax asked, appearing at the doorway. There was an uncharacteristic gentleness in his eyes, “Are you alright?”

Peter stared at him, and glanced around his dark quarters. “I thought—,” Peter grimaced, feeling stupid, “It’s nothing. I’m tired.”

“You should sleep,” Drax said.

“Yeah,” Peter nodded, and pulled himself into bed, “Yeah, you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right,” Drax said, flatly.

“Yeah,” Peter said, fixing the pillow behind his head, “Ok.”

“Sleep well,” Drax said, and ducked out of the doorway.

Peter stared up at the dusty ceiling. He wasn’t sleeping when the living room light dimmed and there was no more noise around the ship. He still wasn’t sleeping when the tail of bright ashes outside his window dimmed because there was no more light to illuminate it. His eyes finally drifted shut when his digital clock read 3:09 AM, and his last thought was: that voice sounded a lot like David Hasselhoff.

 

*

 

Peter wakes up in pain. Overnight, his small headache had grown into a monster, throbbing with every heartbeat. It felt like an axe lodged between his eyes, and every movement of his head smashed his brain against his skull. It took him five full minutes to get up from his bed, and another ten to move the two meters across the living room to the kitchen.

Rocket perked up—or Peter thought he did, he could hardly open his eyes—and pushed a bowl of cereal at him. When he noticed Peter’s grimace, he frowned, “You doing alright, Quill?”

Peter leant heavily on the corner of the kitchen table. “I’ve got a really bad...” Peter started, but ended in a sharp gasp. The pain in his head swelled like something alive, a terrible pressure on the inside of skull.

Peter’s vision blurred and he screwed his eyes shut. Numbness spread through his spine, until he felt like a floating, disintergrating skull. Sharp pain stabbed through his eyes and he whined— _Quill!_ —It felt like the pain was pushing himself outside of his body— _Quill, what the hell are you doing?!_ \--He felt like—like—

“Stop!” Gamora screamed.

“There’s no stopping this,” Peter felt his mouth form the words, but he didn’t think them. His awareness faded back into his head, but it was weird, like he was in someone else’s dream, “You thought you could get rid of me,” Peter was saying, although he could hardly pay attention to it, “You thought you could just sweep me under the rug—but gods don’t fall like men do.”

“You’re no god,” Gamora snarled, taking a step towards him, “You’re a cruel old man.”

“Man?” Someone—Peter—said, and shifted his grip. That was when he realised he was holding a gun, and felt the cold muzzle at his temple. Distantly, he realised that was a bad thing, but his jaw was working again and he had to pay attention to catch what he was saying—“You need to stop thinking like a mortal,” He said, and took a step back. He turned to the mouth of an escape pod, using one hand to pull the door open and start the engine.

“Where are you going?” Rocket snapped, “Where are you taking him?”

Peter shook his head and smirked. “Now that would be telling,” He said, smoothly, and sat in the drivers seat, not taking the gun from his temple. “And, since I know there’s no stopping you from following me, a word of advice: There is no separating us. You’d do well not to be caught in the blow.”

“Asshole!” Rocket spat, “I’ll kill you—even if it’s in the next life.”

Peter saw himself slam the detach button and the ship began to move, throwing up a barrier between the pod and the ship, and with one final groan the pod dropped in to space and Peter steered it into the black.

Soon the Milano, Yondu’s ship, the bright ashes of his real dad were whipped away by the empty black. White stars scattered the ship with cool light. Peter gripped the steering wheel hard, knuckles creaking.

It took Peter a long time to work up the strength to move his own muscles. “Hhh—ow…?” Peter mumbled.

“How?” Ego asked, turning Peter’s head dismissively. “How, not why? You mortals are so simple minded.”

“Nnn...ot ss—s-...” Peter managed, wrestling his muscles.

“Shut up,” Ego shook his head, tensing. “You’re an idiot. You’re all idiots, if you think a bomb could stop me in my tracks. I’m not human. Part of me is you. We were— _are_ —one! Your mother—the reason you’re the only one that worked was because she was the only one I was really read to give part of me to. The real part. As long as you live, a part of me lives.”

Ego slammed the controls and the ship lurched into a jump. The stars streaked across the windows, tails of white cutting into Peter’s eyes but Ego didn’t look away. He marvelled at the negatives left on the inside of his eyelids.

Peter caught a glimpse of something huge and bright in the corner of his eyes but couldn’t turn his own head. He wrenched desperately at his jaw, “What is…?”

Ego turned his head.

A sun filled his vision, bright enough to daze. The light was terrible and beautiful. Although it was fringed with fire at the edges—yellow, blue, red—the heart of it was white, a blinding, pure white. It was like looking into the soul of the universe.

“Don’t you see it?” Ego snapped, turning the ship towards it, “It’s humongous! Too large to fathom for someone like you, probably.”

Peter flexed his little finger, working feeling into it.

“Tell me you understand,” Ego said, sharply, “How can anything living compete with this? How can biological be anything but a perversion of things like this? Things like us?”

Peter drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

“Tell me you can see it too,” Ego said, lifting his head. “Biological life—it’s so boring, so self destructive. It’s all the same; war, death, famine. Conquest. Tell me you see it too, Peter.” A tear brimmed over Peter’s eye and rolled down his cheek. “Peter Quill.”

“I’m not going to tell you killing my siblings was right. I’m not going to forgive you for my mom,” Peter snarled, eyes tightening. “I don’t care that you’re upset about it.”

Tears ran down Peter’s face.

Pain and sharp sadness flooded into Peter’s chest. It was like being hit with a truck, it was like imploding around a vacuum. It almost overwhelmed him. What struck him most was the stinging loneliness, the pain and fear that surrounded it, knotting it in his chest. He choked.

“You killed me,” Egos mumbled. “Now I’m dying again, fading—”

“Shut up,” Peter whimpered. More tears brimmed in his eyes. Feeling returned to his arms and he slammed on the breaks. The ship stilled still far enough from the sun not to be sucked in, but it was still impossible to ignore. Peter scrubbed his damp face. “You know, if you hadn’t killed them, you would have stretched across the galaxy, in a way that nobody could take from you.”

The loneliness twinged hard in his chest, a twisting knife.

“I’m sorry,” Someone said.

And the headache lifted.

Peter breathed a sigh that became half-gasp. He wiped tears from his face, sniffing hard. The skin around his eyes felt stiff and crusty. He looked out the window. The night was dark, and the star was bright. It was too bright to focus on, but when he put his hand over half of it, he could see its bubbling edge, where the molten hydrogen boiled, constantly. It changed so rapidly he couldn't really see it.

Peter dropped his hand and blinking the daze from his eyes, leaning on his knees. He was alone, again. “It’s hell of a view,” he said, to no-one in particular.


End file.
